Автор(ка):
Адмін
Exactly half a year ago, on February 24, 2022, we published the book "War through the Voices of Children". Hopes, anxiety and dreams of children, contained in 226 pages, are read on virtually all continents of the Earth. The book has reached more than 50 countries.
We summarize the results of the first half-year of the book's existence.
"The book gave the children a voice - their war experience was heard abroad"
The idea for the book "War through the Voices of Children" arose while working with children who suffered during a full-scale invasion. Experts have noticed that children experience war emotionally, but differently than adults. Combat took away precious moments of their carefree childhood. Despite their young age, they were forced to become adults. Sometimes their words were really creepy: “I know you're hiding something from me. They're going to kill us in this basement, right?"
"Today, all children of Ukraine are children of war. Millions are separated from their familiar environment, tens of thousands are waiting for their parents from the war, thousands live in basements near the hostilities and in the territories occupied by Russia. For seven years, the Voices of Children team has been helping children experience war as an experience, not as a trauma. In 2022 alone, we helped more than 42 thousand children and adults. But, in addition to direct help, it is important to listen to children. The book created with their words proved that children's voices are strong, full of jokes and confidence. We have to do everything to relieve them of their suffering," said Olena Rozvadovska, co-founder of the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation.
The quotes contained in the book were collected from all over Ukraine. According to Olga Vovk, team leader of the creative department of the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation, her younger sister, who was waiting for her father from the war all her conscious life, first inspired her to collect children's quotes.
"I have a sister Tanya, now she is nine. As soon as she started talking, I wrote down her apt, childlike cosmic words. Tanya lived in war conditions since childhood, because our father was a military man and was often absent from home because of his work. It was difficult for my sister - she often cried for him... Due to the full-scale war, the family had to temporarily leave Lviv to another country, so she did not see her father at all for a long time. And there is a quote from her in the book: "I would like to teleport invisibly to Ukraine - so that I could see everything, but no one could see me." She just wanted to see her dad, because she missed him very much," shared Olga Vovk.
While working in Eastern Ukraine, Olga recorded the words of local children about the war and published them on social networks. When she joined the foundation, she and her colleagues decided that the world should hear Ukrainian children. That's how children's quotes began to be published on Voices of Children social networks. The column, started by the foundation, has been around for over three years. Half a year ago, it turned into a book — primarily to tell people abroad about what is happening in Ukraine through the lens of children's experiences.
To do this, psychologists and experts started a flash mob on social networks on June 1, 2022, collecting children's quotes about the war. According to Olga, many parents responded to the appeal. They published apt sayings of their children on their pages, but some did not make it into the book - we continue to publish them on our social networks. The book was a success: it contains both sad, morally difficult quotes, and bright ones - about children's faith in victory and their dreams of a peaceful life.
One of the wards of the Voices of Children, Nazar, shared his statement for the book: "Mom, we lived so little. I want to live longer." He said these words during the evacuation from Zolote in the Luhansk region to the Kyiv region. He heard and saw war all his conscious age, and after February 24, 2022, the occupiers took away his home, friends, and beloved dog. The quote in the book is just an echo of the boy's hope for victory.
Well-known Ukrainians, ambassadors of the Voices of Children, joined in illustrating the book. Among them are singers Jamala and Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, chef Yevhen Klopotenko and illustrator Oleksandr Grekhov.
Mom, even Google doesn't know when the war will end?
In half a year, the foundation printed more than a thousand copies of the book "War through the Voices of Children". Soon it will be translated into English to be published in the USA, because the publication is attracting interest all over the world.
Olena Yermolenko, communications manager of the Voices of Children, notes that the book has already been seen in half a hundred countries around the world. Conveying the emotions experienced by children during wartime is one of the tasks of creating the book "War through the Voices of Children". That is why, in Brussels, in front of representatives of the European Parliament, Azad Safarov, co-founder of the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation, read a letter from a boy from the occupation - a child who is forced to survive among enemies: "In war, you feel like a little kitten running around, unable to solve anything and only hoping at the decision of the "master".
"The book was presented to diplomats and ambassadors from 55 countries in the OSCE. In April, it was presented in Belgium, then in Denmark, Austria, Germany, France and Great Britain. There are copies of the book in the UAE, Australia, and even in Antarctica, where the book went on an expedition together with Ukrainian polar explorers," said Olena Yermolenko, coordinator of the creation of the book "War through the Voices of Children."
Today, the book can be bought in Ukraine and abroad for a donation. All collected funds are directed to help children - one copy costs as much as one psychological session with a child.
"The book once again reminds the world that children's voices must be heard. We call "War through the Voices of Children" a book-testimony, a book-manifesto, a book-hope. Some of the quotes in it are frightening, some are touching or amusing. Everyone is different, but none leaves anyone indifferent. This book is not pitiful or sad. It is about the struggle of children, their entertainment and a variety of feelings," experts of the Voices of Children Foundation are convinced.
Поділитись: